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    Hearthstone Low effort

    November 27, 2020

    Hearthstone Low effort

    Low effort

    Posted: 27 Nov 2020 06:37 AM PST

    An email Brian Kibler received this morning then shared on Twitter. It is okay to be upset about HS’ economy. It is never okay to abuse someone because of that. Some of the fanbase really need to tone it down

    Posted: 27 Nov 2020 08:14 AM PST

    Black Friday Sale - 50% Off Old Expansions!

    Posted: 27 Nov 2020 09:17 AM PST

    In Gwent. Not in Hearthstone, obviously.

    C'Thanks, Blizzard.

    submitted by /u/KaladinHS
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    In response to Kibler's question: How HS has gotten more and more expensive over the years and what Blizzard has done to counteract that.

    Posted: 27 Nov 2020 09:38 AM PST

    A disclaimer first: I'm only going to talk about the (in-game) economical implication of changes Blizzard has made over the years, not if they were needed, good or bad from a gameplay perspective.

     

    The Dust System

    Ironically I'll start with something Blizzard hasn't changed since release.

    Rarity Crafting Cost Disenchant Reward
    Legendary 1600 400
    Epic 400 100
    Rare 100 20
    Common 40 5

    When disenchanting cards, you only get back between 12,5%-25% of their crafting cost. This means for every legendary you want to craft, you need to disenchant 4 others, 16 epics, 80 rares or 320 commons. This system was implemented when Classic was the only set in the game. But with the amount of new cards coming out every year, this should have been updated years ago.

    Another thing Blizzard has not touched since release are the drop rates: At least 1 rare per pack (or better), 1 epic every 5 packs, 1 legendary every 20 packs on average with a pity timer of 10 packs for epics and 40 for legendaries. Same thing, should have been looked at years ago.

     

    Content Release Schedule

    The frequency of content releases heavily influences the amount of gold you can accumulate between expansions. Let's take a look how things have changed over the years:

     

    2014-2016

    • Ignoring the first year, we had 3 expansions released per year ever since 2015. The difference back then was that adventures and pack based expansions alternated. This had major upsides for the average player: You had 8 months between pack based expansions which you could use to either bolster your collection or save up for the upcoming release. You could get all meta relevant cards guaranteed for 2800 gold. For a F2P player this was amazing, bar the fact that if you joined way after an adventure was released and wanted just one specific card, you still had to pay 700 gold per wing because Blizzard made those cards not craftable. Still a small price to pay in my opinion.

    • With the first expansion of 2016, Whispers of the Old Gods, came the introduction of the standard rotation. Probably needed for the health of the game, it resulted in a hefty increase in cost for the playerbase. You lose half your playable cards every year, which means if you skip an expansion or don't play much for a longer period of time, you fall behind. A lot. You only have to look at the huge amount of players dusting their rotating cards each year despite the fact that they only get about 20% of crafting value in return, just to be able to keep up.

     

    2017-2018

    • In 2017, Blizzard got rid of adventures and started releasing 3 pack based expansions per year. Now we always have 4 months per expansion to accumulate gold. They also promised to add PvE content for free with future expansions.

    • 2018 didn't change anything, though Rhastakan's Rumble was the last expansion with free PvE content.

     

    2019

    • With Rise of Shadows, PvE content is now has a cost attached to it (either gold or $), but doesn't reward any unique cards (except for one promotional card most players hoped to dust anyway)

    • With Descent of Dragons that changed. The corresponding adventure was now released a month later, containing unique cards that were playable in constructed, priced the same as former adventure expansions at 2800 gold. Hearthstone's first "mini - set".

     

    2020

    • PvE content is now free again, such as Illidan's campaign in Ashes or the monthly Book of Heroes.

    • Starting with Darkmoon Faire, 35 card mini-sets will launch at the halfway point each expansion going forward. Those cards will be added to the corresponding expansion's packs and will be craftable on launch day. For me at least, this change made me stop opening packs after I had every common and rare card on expansion launch which felt really, really bad.

     

    TL;DR, we went from alternating between adventures and pack expansions to 3 pack expansions per year with additional mini-sets released in between.

     

    Cards per expansion

     

    Epics

    Not much has changed here. Between GvG and DoD, you pretty much always had 2 unique epics per class + 9 unique neutral epics. Ever since the introduction of Demon Hunter, neutral epics have been reduced to 3 per expansion.

     

    Legendaries

    • GvG: 1 Legendary per class + 11 Neutral = 20 in total
    • TGT: 1 Legendary per class (2 for Hunter) + 10 Neutral = 20 in total
    • WOG: 1 Legendary per class + 12 Neutral = 21 in total
    • MSoG: 1 Legendary per class + 3 Tri Class + 8 Neutral = 20 in total

    Up until here, things have been pretty stable. With Journey to Un'Goro though, they started adding 2 legendaries per class to every set.

    • UG - DoD: 2 Legendaries per class + 5 neutrals = 23 in total

    With the addition of Demon Hunter, 2 Legendaries were added to the total.

    • AoO - DMF: 2 Legendaries per class + 5 neutrals = 25 in total

     

    In conclusion: In my opinion, you can't overstate how big of a change it was to introduce two class specific legendaries per expansion. Not only are most legendaries now restricted to one class, they more likely than not push one specific archtype for that class. If you lack the supporting cards for said archtype, you either craft those or your legendary card has no use to you as a player. Though some neutral powerhouses still come up here and there, their use is rather limited in today's game which leans way more into class specific synergies.

    The most likely scenario when opening packs at launch is this: You open around 60 packs, get 2 or 3 class legendaries and you can't build any deck around them.

     

    Other

    • Nerfs: This might be controversial but in my opinion, regular nerfs do indead increase the games cost. Yes, you can refund the nerfed cards for their full dust cost but those cards don't exist in a vacuum. Let's take Gala Shaman as an example. After the nerfs the class as a whole was pretty much not playable at a reasonable level in standard. Any Shaman cards you may have crafted for that deck are now useless.

    • Events: It may be my personal bias but it feels like events nowadays are happening more in the shop than they do ingame. Where we used to get double gold or gold/dust rewards, you now get at best 6 packs, 4 of which are from old expansions.

    • Achievements: Linking those that award XP to cards the current expansion. Usually the more XP, the higher the card rarity.

     

    Blizzard's solutions so far

    • Tavern Brawl added around 50 Classic packs per year - introduced mid 2015
    • Duplicate protection on legendaries - introduced with KFT in 2017
    • 1 Legendary in your first 10 packs rule also introduced with KFT
    • Free Legendary on expansion launch, starting with Death Knights in KFT
    • 40 gold daily quests now give 50 gold instead - introduced with WW in 2018
    • Duplicate protection on all rarities introduced with AoO in 2020
    • Reworked Ranked reward, also introduced with AoO in 2020

     

    Those are great changes and I am happy they were implemented. Because of the last duplicate protection change, I was able to finish my classic set without crafting epics and legendaries I don't need after playing since beta. Yay!

    But looking at this whole list, I feel they aren't nearly enough. Hearthstone has been in need of an economy overhaul for years and I hoped the new reward structure was gonna be just that. Well, it was some kind of overhaul, but certainly not for the better. In fact it has been so bad, some players wish for the old system to return which was already atrocious.

    Kibler also mentioned the free decks for new players which I don't think you can use in an argument about the general cost of the game. Those have literally no effect on the consistently active user. As for the "free" Demon Hunter cards, they didn't really have much of a choice when introducing a new class to the game. Imagine if you had to pay to have access to those.

     

    Anyways, thank you for reading through this wall of text. If you have anything to add or correct me on, feel free to do so!

    submitted by /u/rumsbumsrums
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    We’re slowly doing it!

    Posted: 27 Nov 2020 06:23 AM PST

    Feels bad man... need 3900 xp for 5 gold.

    Posted: 27 Nov 2020 12:31 AM PST

    Russian streamer who is actively supported by Blizzard released a video about how bad battle pass is

    Posted: 27 Nov 2020 09:57 AM PST

    I see a lot of posts praising the old 10g per win and quest system. Remember that the reason we got this new rewards system was to improve an already terrible system.

    Posted: 27 Nov 2020 05:05 AM PST

    I feel like this is a stunt to make the players feel that the company listens. If they react to this outrage by adjusting the new system to match the old one, it's not enough. Please don't let this aspect be forgotten. Remember what the tone was before the change.

    Sincerely, A hearthbroken player

    submitted by /u/Arlah
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    The quality of the game is VERY LOW nowadays. We went from bugs like "Card no one uses in class it never meant to be played sometimes does something weird in impossible situation" to "The protagonist of the expansion crashes the game when played" and its been the case for way too much time.

    Posted: 27 Nov 2020 10:08 AM PST

    Why keep increasing the cost while lowering the quality. This doesn't make any sense.

    submitted by /u/Artorias_Soul
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    It's all for the Chinese market

    Posted: 27 Nov 2020 12:18 AM PST

    As someone who completed all his dailies for 3 years that I play , I just realised due to the new system this is the frist week that I intentionally didn't play hearthstone

    Posted: 27 Nov 2020 07:59 AM PST

    I have played for 3 years ,not once I missed a daily quest with the old system, I didn't spend money on hearthstone but I did buy overwatch and starcraft 2 campaigns and 2 starcraft books . I used to grew up with Blizzard games from my childhood watching my brother playing wow to my high school years playing starcraft, hearthstone and overwatch with my friends

    Over the years we all know that Blizzard has become more greedy , they abandoned their values and even censored them during the Hong Kong scandal , they went from making cult classics in gaming history to making sloppy cash grabs like warcraft 3 reforged

    With the new reward was the final straw , they lied to their audience and I seen devs lie to me before but just like those times I quit. Those who lie to their customers don't deserve money , they don't view video games as art but as slots , and I won't

    Until you don't change your approach, your marketing, your mentality, hell, change your boss , remove Bobby Kotick, that damn tax avoiding, corrupt , greedy, maybe paedophile ( he had Jeffrey Epstein connections) mole rat looking guy that lays off 800 people , doesn't raise his employees salary despite making a boatload of money .I'm done with Blizzard, that is too blind to see they are being forgotten and buried by competitors and too deaf to hear their customers .

    Goodbye Blizzard , thank you for the fun memories- a disappointed and tired fan

    submitted by /u/kingofchaosx
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    You guys were not kidding, the game feels terrible.

    Posted: 27 Nov 2020 10:35 AM PST

    As a casual player that has bought expansions and adventures before, but has not been too into the game lately, the reaction I saw online to the changes seemed overblown. Status quo bias is a real thing, and whenever there is change people complain loudly (As a LOL player there are always complains whenever ANYTHING changes. It can't be as bad as they make it seem. Until I played it. I am not sure if the overall game economy has improved or not, I will leave that to the people doing math, but it just feels wrong, and the experience just made me not want to play the game.

    I got a weekly quest of playing 10 old gods. I did not get one in the 30 packs I have opened so far, so I rerolled. New quest win 4+ games in an Arena Run. Sure, Arena is fun, so why not. I have 145 gold, so I just need to get 5 gold. But to get 5 gold I need ~6400 XP, as my next level only gets me a DoD pack.

    I closed the game. Games are supposed to be fun. This is not fun.

    submitted by /u/davidleo24
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    Hey Blizzard, this is russian community and we can count as well you know. Fix BP...

    Posted: 27 Nov 2020 10:42 AM PST

    #FixBattlePass

    Posted: 27 Nov 2020 10:40 AM PST

    My last bow to the true Old Gods of Hearthstone. This is my Goodbye. (posted a long story earlier, wanted to provide some proof)

    Posted: 27 Nov 2020 08:43 AM PST

    Have you stopped playing, too?

    Posted: 27 Nov 2020 04:32 AM PST

    Like many here, I was a regular HS player. I came in at Whispers of The Old Gods, and have been playing on and off. Since pandemic hit, I've hit legend every month, and purchase both bundles and all the mini-bundles, same as with Darkmoon Faire.

    And like some of you, I've felt disappointment and frustration with the game, ever since the rewards track. And so I stopped playing, moved to a different game (Gwent), and have felt more joy there than I've seemingly felt in the past couple of months. I haven't logged back into HS since.

    I wonder if I'll ever return to Hearthstone. I suppose the option is always there, but only if changes are made to the experience/gold system. I haven't logged on since maybe 3 days after Darkmoon Faire dropped. I'm happy elsewhere, frankly.

    Anyone else here experiencing the same thing? Have you migrated to other games? And if yes, do you think that our no longer playing (and by extension, spending), will help revive this game that we've poured so much of ourselves into?

    submitted by /u/OrpheusPH
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    I can't afford playing HS anymore

    Posted: 27 Nov 2020 10:53 AM PST

    Kinky provides comprehensive analysis of current Hearthstone situation - "What's going on at Blizzard"

    Posted: 27 Nov 2020 06:32 AM PST

    Hearthstone is an addiction.

    Posted: 27 Nov 2020 07:33 AM PST

    Hearthstone is an addiction. Blizzard/Activision has been perfecting this craft for years now with D3 original release, overwatch, and hearthstone. Every so often they push the boundaries on monetization to test the waters and see what they can get away with. I imagine this new battle pass system will be scrapped if the backlash keeps being this intense up past christmas, similar to Real money auction house in d3.

    They've developed a gambling system that is designed to take advantage of known weaknesses in the human brain. Youre conditioned very early on in all three of their main IPs to be happy when that first orange drops. All these flashy colors. Look how cool it is! Look how good this amazing card/piece of gear/skin is! They then drip feed that experience to you at the lowest content-per-dollar ratio they can get away with. Notice how they have changed the packs per legendary ratio three times and added a pity timer? Intentional. All of it. Seasonal and promotional events also help contribute to Fear of Missing Out (or FOMO for short) and sell more product.

    Hearthstone is nothing more than a very very expensive slot machine. Everything is locked behind the rng of cracking packs. This is the only CCG I can think of that doesnt allow you to buy singles, which is intentional. This has skyrocketed the cost of the game as decks require more and more legendaries to function. Hearthstone is the only CCG I can think of where 60$ isnt enough to pick a starter deck you want to try out. I did the math when I quit hearthstone, and all free legendaries included: you need to spend on average 25$ per legendary or a set of epics. Highlander mage, which isnt even an amazingly good deck, costs about 125-150$. Libram Paladin, which is a good deck, costs at LEAST 50$ and even thats a pretty barebones list or a very lucky player.

    Like. Even the "not a lot of value" deck bundles you can buy in LOR every expansion is what, 25$? And reduces in cost for the cards you already own. Shit dude, if I spent 150$ on Magic the gathering, I could get 5 different commander starter decks.

    Hearthstone just kinda expected nobody to do the math on this one because they tricked our brains so hard we didnt care. It took a long time and a lot of my money being flushed down the toilet for me to have that "sobering up" moment where I sat down and did the math and saw how bad it was. Hearthstone is an addiction, man. There's a reason why the pre-order bundles are 80$ and why people will pay that much. They need that smack.

    I hope this is your sobering up moment. I hope this is the day you realize that playing hearthstone is actually a burden in your life and you move on. I promise you, your money is better spent on other things that make you happy.

    submitted by /u/mattheguy123
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    Blame the Game Director for this mess

    Posted: 27 Nov 2020 09:26 AM PST

    Blame the Game Director for this mess

    ​

    https://preview.redd.it/8u0ka93oht161.jpg?width=1024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=59b9e2d6532f8e77a250cbbf99184817623b6895

    Saw a video from Solem recently that blamed the Marketing dept of Blizzard for the new stingier HS reward system. I have to say, I think he's barking up the wrong tree there. I'm a marketing asshole that works for a streaming service, and I can tell you that this doesn't feel like a marketing decision to me. This feels like something from the top.

    In the marketing department at my company, I can tell you that the channel owners (email, push notifications, social, studio relations, etc,) have ZERO concept of how we stream. Literally, no idea of the technical details of streaming. They concentrate on the channel they know well, and make sure that the messaging for their channel is the best it can be.

    Now at my company, the head of loyalty is very clever. He is very good at tweaking our current loyalty system to keep our customers coming with a consistent ROI. And while he is very good at his job, I also know him to be spineless. Nice guy, but I can't see him making a single decision without approval from the Chief Marketing Officer. Going to go out on a limb here and say that this is likely the case at Blizzard too.

    Since the decision to change the entire reward system was a HUGE decision impacting potentially millions of dollars of income, I'm guessing every detail was debated within the department and ultimately approved by the CMO. Or whatever the equivalent of the CMO is for Blizzard. Perhaps that is the "Game Director" Ben Lee? Just speculating here.

    My guess here is that the CMO was given directive to convert more F2P players into paying players. And that in this case, I theorize that the CMO underestimated: a) HS players resistance to change, and b) how quickly HS players would figure out that the system was worse, not better.

    So, to me, blame the CMO (or equivalent) for this mess. Sure, he was being pressured by his higher-ups to get more cash from the game, but that's what higher-ups always do. They always push for more. It's the job of the CMO to make sure that the changes don't kill the game. To balance the changes and make sure they don't go too far. And that's where the failure is, IMO.

    But, also, Jesus Christ, where is the PR department for Blizzard? Did Blizzard lay off their entire PR dept? Like all of you, I've been incredibly underwhelmed by Blizzard's lack of response. The anger on this board is palpable and real... The post from Blizzard has been tepid at best, with no change to the system itself, what, 2 weeks later?

    I mean, look at the App Store reviews by "most recent," and you'll see that this sub has been BUSY writing 1-star reviews for the app. Sure, the most glowing reviews somehow find their way to the top, but that rate of 3.5 is declining rapidly. I recall it was 4.4-ish a few months ago. If that number dips below 3, Blizzard has a real problem on its hands with not gaining new players.

    Besides Hearthstone, the other game I play is DC Legends. Is a mobile RPG that's mostly pay-to-win, but does well for F2P players. A few months ago, they brought in a change to their rewards system too. They removed their largest monthly reward of gold, and replaced it with a new (but important to the game) currency called "rebirth." The outcry from the game was vicious. Players didn't understand the new currency yet, and were filling the reddit sub with complaints and threats to leave. Kind of like what's happening on this sub, but with maybe 1/4th of posts.

    And you know what? It actually worked. WB listened to their community, and brought back the old monthly gold reward. The DCL sub was (mostly) sated, and the game continues on.

    Why Blizzard hasn't changed the system at least slightly is just mystifying to me. Not even a small change... a bone to the players genuinely concerned for the state of their game... not even a slight attempt to slow the hemorrhaging of bad reviews... nothing.

    Right now, I think one of two things are happening. 1) The coding to change their system is a more arduous task than anticipated and with the US holiday, these changes are still coming, but have been delayed. Or 2), the game director/CMO is doubling down. He has his orders to convert F2P players to paid, and he'll keep going with the current system, even if it only converts 5% of F2P players to paying.

    I can't rule out #1 yet, but I think #2 is what is going on here. The CMO/game director has already underestimated the community once. Not a stretch that he's thinking that he can weather the storm and meet his goal of F2P conversions.

    Even a 5% conversion rate of F2P players would be a win for the CMO... even if 95% of the F2P players leave. Now, if he sees a significant number of PAYING customers leave on his watch, that's a different story. Combine people leaving with the steady stream of negative reviews, and that's the only way we're going to get concessions on the new system.

    But to be honest, I'm not optimistic about that.

    submitted by /u/emptyfree
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    The cardback was meant to be on the paid track.

    Posted: 27 Nov 2020 02:50 AM PST

    Game Devs Design their Monetization to be Manipulative and Addictive, and they always have. Blizzard is no different

    Posted: 27 Nov 2020 07:21 AM PST

    Are you level 27? Congrats, you're over 1/4 of the way to level 50.

    Posted: 27 Nov 2020 02:14 AM PST

    Source: https://outof.cards/hearthstone/2200-the-rewards-track-how-long-to-get-to-level-50-644000-experience-required-to-get-to-level-150

    You need 196'200 xp to get to level 50.

    Since each of the levels need increased amounts of experience, 1/4 of that accumulated xp is 49'050

    This lands you most of the way to level 27, which requires 52'500 xp.

    submitted by /u/b_ootay_ful
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    The algorithm knows.

    Posted: 27 Nov 2020 02:21 AM PST

    Woooow! Golden Credits!

    Posted: 27 Nov 2020 12:54 PM PST
    Read more
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